Positively Foul!
by Rath101
Summary: "Tis' no wonder no one poisons themselves! It's positively foul!"


**Disclaimer: I do not own 'Romeo & Juliet', William Shakespeare does.**

**Summary: ….Raising the bottle to his lips; he drank - only to spit it out gagging. "No wonder no one kills themselves with poison! It's positively foul!"**

**Based on the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli version. I am also not advance in Shakespeare, so excuse my poor attempted Elizabethan language. I am also rather poor at iambic pentameter.**

As he crept into the mausoleum, the days that Romeo lived with his beloved Juliet flooded into his mind.

He remembered their chance or perhaps fated meeting at the Capulet's party. The way he grasped her hand and kissed it, worshipping her hand as he believed a saint would devote a deity. The way her eyes shined in the dim light with mischievous wonder. Then the feel of her lips against his that halted his breath and rushed his heart. The stolen kisses that lasted not nearly long enough before she was stolen away. The swelling feeling in his heart as he imagined kissing her as an old man would his wife of many decades, as they watched their beautiful grandchildren play from the balcony.

Nor would he ever forget the way his heart stopped for a mere second at the knowledge that she was the daughter of the enemy his family has fought for what seemed like centuries. The shock and delight he felt when he overheard her speaking her inner thoughts to him, about himself. When she agreed to marry him. When they married… when she accepted him even though he had murdered her cousin in cold blood only hours earlier.

Oh Juliet… the night he held her in his arms and whispered sweet words of endearment, comfort and encouragement to her. Her adorable blush as she stood bare before him, the feeling of skin against skin and then the eventual dread when light crept through the window. Beholding her one last time in only God knows how long before giving her one last longing look, before vanishing into the darkness of the trees.

Romeo's thoughts ended their and his stomach dropped at the sight that beheld him. There, in her too soon shroud, was the love of his now lifeless existence. He slowly approached her, almost subliming in his disbelief as he looked down upon her delicate face. He choked back silent tears and held the hand of the wife who was so dear to him and robbed cruelly from him so soon.

"Ah, dear Juliet,

Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe

That unsubstantial death is amorous,

And that the lean abhorred monster keeps

Thee here in dark to be his paramour?

For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;

And never from this palace of dim night

Depart again: here, here will I remain

With worms that are thy chamber-maids;

O, hereWill I set up my everlasting rest,

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh."

Romeo clenched his eyes, sobs breaking through his chest as he looked upon the woman he was prepared to lie and die with.

"Eyes, look your last!

Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you

The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss

A dateless bargain to engrossing death!

Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on

The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!"

Romeo raised the small vial from his pocket, uncorked it, and raised it to his lips. Catching a whiff of the vile smell attacked his nose and Romeo could barely contain his straight face. Ignoring the smell, he raised the poisons liquid to his mouth, but halted with four last words to say;

"Here's to my love!"

Tilting his head back, he tipped the poison into his mouth. He was expecting a horrible taste, perhaps like the medicine he would be forced to drink as a child. But nothing he had ever consumed before had prepared him for this. It tasted like something bitter, sour and sickeningly sweet all mixed together. He reflexively spat it out, spraying it all over the putrid air and onto his shoes.

"Tis' no wonder no one poisons themselves! It's positively foul!"

Spitting and gagging to remove the disgusting taste from his mouth, he failed to notice Juliet shift ever so slightly. Forgetting momentarily his objection of the night, Romeo briefly wonders what processed him to drink it, although a glance of Juliet's still and stiff form promptly reminds him.

Romeo curses strongly and scolds himself at his own stupidity, again not noticing how his wife had jumped in shock of his string of curses, and even blushed at some of his more colourfully created ones.

Confused as to why her lord and love was using such foul language, Juliet slowly stood and stepped hesitantly towards him, who faced away from her.

Romeo, however, was debating the next way to end his miserable existence. He contemplated stabbing himself, but he couldn't prevent the grimaces on his face each time the thought appeared. Bashing his head on the stone walls barely seemed any more appealing, and he doubted his body would be very complying. He couldn't rush to get more poison for many reasons, one being his banishment from Verona. He groaned and fell to the floor, hugging his knees and massaging his head. At this rate, he'd starve to death before he could think of an appropriate suicide tactic.

Juliet was about to place her hand on Romeo's shoulder and call his name when he suddenly jumped up in the air, an almost renewed joyfulness about him.

"Oh, how simple a solution!

I am starv'd of Juliet's company,

So, I shall fast til my own demise!"

Juliet's eyes went wide at his words, and shock overcame her. What had become of her husband? Why was he acting this way? He almost sounded deranged!

"Oh, Juliet!

To hold thee til I depart this dull world,

To defy the lark and see that mockingbird!

To ne'er release you like a ships boom furled!

My dearest love, wife, reason for being,

Allow me to - JULIET?"

Romeo cut off his own rambling with a gasped name as he turned to hold Juliet in his arms until he died but before him stood something better, the most beautiful angel he had ever laid eyes upon - and no angel could hold a candle to her. _His Juliet_.

Without word, he swooped her up in his arms and clutched her close to his chest, ignoring her surprised gasp.

"I had thought thee gone." Was all he could say.

His Juliet smiled and placed her delicate hand upon his check. Their eyes locked and no more words need be exchanged. Suddenly, there was a loud thump from outside, and the young lovers exchanged alarmed looks. Bolting as fast as their legs could carry them, they fled from the resting place of the Capulet's and into the night. Together.

The Friar Lawrence rushes into the mausoleum not a moment later, worry gnawing at his chest from the servant boys words. Rushing to the tomb of Juliet, his breath halted at the sight. Juliet was nowhere to be seen, and a small vial was off to the side, presumably discarded in haste. He looked around the tomb for a few moments more before sighing in relief. His plan had worked.

Hearing the sound of the watchman, the Friar gulps and breaths deeply. It was now time to speak to the Prince, and he would tell him that Juliet had been stolen from grave robbers, possibly Romeo. The family would fume at the audacity of the young man and mourn over the robbed peace of Juliet, but in the exchange for the young star-crossed lovers' lives and happiness, it was a price God would have to pardon him for.


End file.
